Generally, a vehicle body is formed as a body in white (BIW) through a vehicle body assembly process of assembling various panels produced in vehicle body sub-processes.
A vehicle body includes a floor panel forming a lower side of a frame of the body, opposite side panels forming left and right sides of the frame, a roof panel forming an upper side of the frame, a plurality of roof rails, a cowl panel, a back panel, a package tray, etc. Assembling of such parts of the vehicle body is performed in a main buck process (referred to as a vehicle body build-up process in the industry).
In the main buck process, after the back panel is bonded to the floor panel through a vehicle body assembly system, the opposite side panels, the roof panel, the roof rail, the cowl panel, the package tray, etc. are welded and assembled.
The vehicle body assembly system sets the side panels to the floor panel by holding the side panels by a side hanger and a side gate, and after the system sets the roof panel, the roof rail, the cowl panel, the package tray, etc. to the side panel, their bonding portions are welded by a welding robot.
In the vehicle body assembly process, after the roof panel is welded to the side panels by spot-welding, a roof molding made of resin is attached to the welded portions of the side panels and the roof panel.
However, since the roof molding is attached to the welded portions of the side panels and the roof panel in the conventional art, appearance thereof is not good, and material costs and labor costs may increase due to attachment of the roof molding.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only to enhance the understanding of the background of the disclosure and therefore it may contain information that is not prior art already known a person of ordinary skill in the art.